Sakura Frappuccino Mermaid
Inspired by the art of and a gift to my friend @akarui-sakura that I drew a solid while back. Frankly I was debating doing a redraw or at least a touch-up in the future, what do you guys think?
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A fun fact for this fun Friday, please?
Alright, Anon! Today You Learned about the Starbucks logo!
So, there’s an exhibit at the local library with an artist from the area, and one of the paintings is a black mermaid, which the sign says that it’s a depiction of Yemoja, the Yoruba orisha of rivers and mother of the orishas.
[‘Orishas’ is often translated as ‘gods’ but YMMV on how good of a translation that is.]
Anyhow, the caption goes on to explain that Yemoja is also depicted on the Starbucks logo!
Except, um… no, she’s not.
Aside from the question of whether or not Yemoja is even traditionally depicted as a mermaid–she is now, but from what I can tell that’s a modern thing–the history of the Starbucks logo has been a question of extensive research, weirdly enough! The official claim, made by company spokeswoman Valerie O’Neil in 2006 is that it’s a siren, because “a mermaid with two tails is a siren in Greek mythology!”
Which, uh, no. In old Greek mythology, sirens aren’t mermaids at all. And the idea that a mermaid with two tails is designated as a siren is found exactly nowhere in Greek sources.
Some have said that it’s Melusine, a figure from medieval mythology (maybe worth a Fun Fact one day?), but ultimately, someone from the company claimed it was based on a “16th century Norse woodcut.” Except a Yale grad student revealed that there’s no such thing! As near as they can tell, the two-tailed mermaid image they’re referring to was from a book, Dictionary of Symbols, by Juan Eduardo Cirlot, a 20th century Spanish scholar who got the image from a 15th century German illustration.
In short, the people at Starbucks don’t know where they got their own logo from, but it’s not Yemoja!
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